roosters head droopsI

Hello, I live in Mexico and have nearly 30 chickens of mixed breeding. We have a rooster that is nearly twice as large as the normal chickens in the area. He has a reoccuring problem of his head drooping. His head will drop almost to the ground and he'll stand that way for a bit then he'll raise his head and walk around for a while. He's been doing this for over a month. Another problem he has is with his tail feathers, they're broken off and gray looking toward the base. He's a pure white chicken and his tail used to be lovely. His tailfeathers have been like this for a couple of months. One more thing. He's a peaceful rooster one of the young roosters challenged him the other day and he ran and hid his head almost acting like he'd had a stroke or something he was really traumatised. Any answers out there. I appreciate any input. We live in a rural area and it's not easy getting a lot of things that are readily available up there. If you have any herbal type remedies that would be helpful. Thanks

Sounds as if your rooster has a very bad mite infestation and what you may be seeing on the base of the tail are eggs from the mites. Check his back end very carefully in the daytime, if you see no bugs running around (they are very quick, look hard) check at night also as some mites only feed at night.

Drooping his head could be related to the mite infestation or could be due to something bad he ate or drank. Is there any old stagnant water laying around that he could have gotten into? Any bad food? Poisonous plants? Drooping of the head could be some form of botulism. Of course it could be something else but it is hard to diagnose over the computer.

I use sevin 5% garden dust on all my chickens. I usually dust the entire chicken but the highest concentration of mites are usually found in the vent area, tail area, and thighs, dust those well. If you prefer not to dust, you can bathe him using a dog/puppy flea and tick shampoo. Just make sure after you lather him up, you let it sit for about 5 minutes before rinsing off. I use Sergeants dog/puppy flea and tick shampoo. What ever you decide to use, I strongly recommend repeating in 10-14 days to kill any eggs that may have hatched during that time. With some very heavy infestations, it would not be a bad idea to treat a third time.

You may also want to worm them using ivomec eprinex pour on. It is sold for cattle but is a great parasitic for chickens. For large fowl you would only use 1/2 cc put on the back of the neck. It is very easy to do and controls parasites inside as well as outside the body. There is no withdrawal period when using this wormer.

I have a rooster that's been doing the same thing for 2 days now. When he does get the energy to crow it's not his usual crow. It's almost like he has something in his throat - like a sore throat!
I noticed an almost microscopic mite on him yesterday but on closer examination didn't find any others. I never checked around his vent. Will do that today after work. In the meantime am trying to get some plain yogurt and water into him incase there is a blockage in the neck. This is worse than when the kids are sick! At least with kids you can figure out what is wrong pretty easily; with poultry it's a bit of trial and error and a lot of guessing.